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between 2 and 15 years of age, who bad not previously
been protected. Although the parents of these children
had had abundant opportunities of obtaining this protection
at the hands of the public vaccinator, there is reason to
believe they would not in many of the cases have permitted
the operation, had it not been for the circumstance of Small
Pox, in its most virulent form, attacking at the time one or
more members of their families. This state of things is
very unsatisfactory, and it is much to be deplored. It is
true that vaccination fails to give the desired protection in
all cases. In 1863 I had assigned to my care a young
woman who had been successfully vaccinated in infancy.
"When in her girlhood she had to nurse a child ill of Small
Pox, and she took the disease, being then well marked by
it; but notwithstanding this she contracted it a second
time, and in the year above stated, died of the malady.
This, however, is quite an exceptionable case. I believe
that vaccination does afford, as a rule, the greatest possible
protection, and I therefore think a law to become so inoperative
as the Compulsory Vaccination Act has of late
years done, must have in it many radical defects, defects
that can only be remedied by an appeal to the legislature.
At present so few appear to know the law, or have the
least notion that the act is to extend vaccination and to
make it compulsory on all, that medical men can scarcely
wonder at meeting so much opposition to the performance
of the operation, the less so when they bear in mind that a
very strong disposition exists on the part of many, to foster
the notion that the Act is alone intended to regulate the
practice of vaccination amongst the very poor. This pauperizing
association must therefore be removed, before the
Act can satisfactorily be carried out for the general benefit.
ACCIDENTAL, VIOLENT AND SUDDEN DEATHS.
During the past year eighteen inquests were held on the
bodies of deceased persons in this sub-district, in the majority
of which medical evidence (although the inquiry is
a purely medical one) was, strange to say, dispensed with